Quotes about Writing: A

• I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. ~ Douglas Adams
  
• Having imagination, it takes you an hour to write a paragraph that, if you were unimaginative, would take you only a minute. Or you might not write the paragraph at all. ~ Franklin P. Adams
  
• Trying to gain a critical perspective on language by means of language is like trying to cut butter with a knife made of butter. ~ Robert M. Adams
  
• Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. ~ Scott Adams
  
• No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous. ~ Henry Adams
  
• "Whom are you?" said he, for he had been to night school. ~ George Ade
  
• One writes to teach, to move or to delight. ~ Rodolphus Agricola
  
• As cows need milking and sweet peas need picking, so writers must continually exercise their mental muscles by a daily stint. ~ Joan Aiken

• Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats. ~ Howard Aiken
  
• Word meanings are like stretchy pullovers, whose outline contour is visible, but whose detailed shape varies with use. ~ Jean Aitchison
  
• Purists behave as if there was a vintage year when language achieved a measure of excellence which we should all strive to maintain. In fact, there was never such a year. The language of Chaucer's or Shakespeare's time was no better and no worse than that of our own - just different. ~ Jean Aitchison
  
• Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it. A good writer turns fact into truth; a bad writer will, more often than not, accomplish the opposite. ~ Edward Albee
  
• The act of writing is an act of optimism. You would not take the trouble to do it if you felt that it didn’t matter. ~ Edward Albee
  
• Sharing our stories can also be a means of healing. Grief and loss may isolate us, and anger may alienate us. Shared with others, these emotions can be powerfully uniting, as we see that we are not alone, and realize that others weep with us. ~ Susan Wittig Albert
  
• Storytelling is healing. As we reveal ourselves in story, we become aware of the continuing core of our lives under the fragmented surface of our experience. We become aware of the multifaceted, multichaptered ' I ' who is the storyteller. We can trace out the paradoxical and even contradictory versions of ourselves that we create for different occasions, different audiences... Most important, as we become aware of ourselves as storytellers, we realize that what we understand and imagine about ourselves is a story. And when we know all this, we can use our stories to heal and make ourselves whole. ~ Susan Wittig Albert

• All writing is a process of elimination. ~ Martha Albrand
  
• Far away in the sunshine are my highest inspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see the beauty, believe in them and try to follow where they may lead. ~ Lousia May Alcott
  
• There are two kinds of writer: those that make you think, and those that make you wonder. ~ Brian Aldiss
  
• A writer should say to himself, not, How can I get more money?, but How can I reach more readers (without lowering standards)? ~ Brian Aldiss
  
• Fantasy's hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it. ~ Lloyd Alexander
  
• Detail makes the difference between boring and terrific writing. It’s the difference between a pencil sketch and a lush oil painting. As a writer, words are your paint. Use all the colours. ~ Rhys Alexander
  
• If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative. ~ Woody Allen
  
• Eighty percent of success is showing up. ~ Woody Allen
  
• If you can't annoy somebody, there is little point in writing. ~ Kingsley Amis
  
• If you’re going to be a writer, the first essential is just to write. Do not wait for an idea. Start writing something and the ideas will come. You have to turn the faucet on before the water starts to flow. ~ Louis L’Amour
  
• I think the first duty of all art, including fiction of any kind, is to entertain. That is to say, to hold interest. No matter how worthy the message of something, if it's dull, you're just not communicating. ~ Poul Anderson
  
• The story...must be a conflict, and specifically, a conflict between the forces of good and evil within a single person. ~ Maxwell Anderson

• When a man publishes a book, there are so many stupid things said that he declares he'll never do it again. The praise is almost always worse than the criticism. ~ Sherwood Anderson
  
• If I wanted to write, I had to be willing to develop a kind of concentration found mostly in people awaiting execution. I had to learn technique and surrender my ignorance. ~ Maya Angelou
  
• One of the problems we have as writers is we don’t take ourselves seriously while writing; being serious is setting aside a time and saying if it comes, good; if it doesn’t come, good, I’ll just sit here. ~ Maya Angelou
  
• If you wait for inspiration, you're not a writer, but a waiter. ~ Anonymous
  
• You know how it is in the kids’ book world; it's just bunny eat bunny. ~ Anonymous
  
• Writers learn their craft, above all, from the work of other writers. From reading. ~ Marie Arana
  
• Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it. ~ Hannah Arendt
  
• We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. ~ Aristotle

• A good style must, first of all, be clear. It must not be mean or above the dignity of the subject. It must be appropriate. ~ Aristotle
  
• Keep writing. Keep doing it and doing it. Even in the moments when it’s so hurtful to think about writing. ~ Heather Armstrong
• Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret. ~ Matthew Arnold
  
• People think that I can teach them style. What stuff it all is! Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style. ~ Matthew Arnold
  
• For the creation of a masterwork of literature two powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment, and the man is not enough without the moment. ~ Matthew Arnold
  
• Writing is a lot easier if you have something to say. ~ Sholem Asch
  
• If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster. ~Isaac Asimov
  
• It is the writer who might catch the imagination of young people, and plant a seed that will flower and come to fruition. ~ Isaac Asimov
  
• Rejection slips, or form letters, however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil - but there is no way around them. ~ Isaac Asimov

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• When I feel difficulty coming on, I switch to another book I'm writing. When I get back to the problem, my unconscious has solved it. ~ Isaac Asimov
  
• You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you're working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist. ~ Isaac Asimov
  
• I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't, I would die. ~ Isaac Asimov
  
• A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason. ~ Margaret Atwood
• Writing is very improvisational. It's like trying to fix a broken sewing machine with safety pins and rubber bands. A lot of tinkering. ~ Margaret Atwood
  
• To most readers the word 'fiction' is an utter fraud. They are entirely convinced that each character has an exact counterpart in real life and that any small discrepancy with that counterpart is a simple error on the author's part. Consequently, they are totally at a loss if anything essential is altered. Make Abraham Lincoln a dentist, put the Gettysburg Address on his tongue, and nobody will recognize it. ~ Louis Auchincloss
  
• No poet or novelist wishes he were the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe their wish has been granted. ~ W. H. Auden
  
• Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about. ~ W. H. Auden
  
• Every novel is an equal collaboration between the writer and the reader and it is the only place in the world where two strangers can meet on terms of absolute intimacy. ~ Paul Auster

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